BRITAX Safety Standards

At BRITAX, our commitment to improving child safety through research, testing, design, and community advocacy is unparalleled. We engineer our products to exceed the safety standards set by the federal government (Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 213) for car seats. In fact, BRITAX conducts twice the number of tests required by NHTSA, as well as side-impact testing for car seats and extended rolling-road and durability testing for strollers. We also continually enhance our products with new technologies that distribute crash forces away from your child during a crash. Some of those technologies include:

SafeCell Technology that features SafeCells designed to compress in a crash, significantly lowering the center of gravity and counteracting the forward rotation of the child seat which normally propels your child toward the front seat

Energy-Absorbing, Versa-Tether that features a staged-release tether webbing to slow the forward movement, reducing crash forces reaching your child and a two-point attachment to minimize forward rotation while anchoring the top of the child seat

Side Impact Cushion Technology which features energy-absorbing cushions on the exterior of the child seat to significantly reduce side impact crash energy by diverting crash forces away from your child and providing extra protection for the adjacent passenger

We also test our products both in our own crash-test facilities and through independent parties.

BRITAX has its own crash test simulators, in the U.S., Europe, and Australia, that can certify to strict global requirements. BRITAX uses a sled so versatile it can also be used to certify airline seats.

Regulatory Agency Standards

At BRITAX, we are required to meet the following standards of regulatory agencies:

Keep in mind that we do conduct tests that are not yet required by regulatory agencies, such as side impact testing, and welcome any changes to current federal standards that work toward furthering child safety.

Chemical Compliance

Parents and caregivers can be assured that all BRITAX products comply with – and often exceed—all current and pending government regulations.The government standard referenced above, FMVSS 302, establishes a flame retardant requirement for car seats, which is intended to prevent harm to occupants in the event of post-accident vehicle fires.

As of January 1, 2013, BRITAX required all of its suppliers to eliminate certain chemical flame retardants containing bromine, chlorine or other halogens, from all components used in its car seats and all other products — while still ensuring their ability to pass federal government standards for flammability. BRITAX is pleased to report that all of its suppliers have confirmed they are compliant with BRITAX’s rigorous internal standards. Strollers do not have flammability standards. Therefore, BRITAX and BOB strollers are not treated with any chemical flame retardants.

BRITAX remains committed to working closely with our suppliers to ensure continued leadership in the area of chemical compliance specifications and to informing consumers of our progress.

Development Tools & Tests

Some of the development tools that we use and tests that we conduct at BRITAX include:

Virtual Simulation
Virtual Simulation involves digitally created car seat models and anthropomorphic testing devices (ATDs or child crash-test dummies). Computer crash-test programs simulate the dynamic behavior of physical systems involved in a collision and assess the injuries sustained by the occupant. Before these virtual tests can be conducted, engineers must create digital car seat models using anthropometric data, which help determine overall seat dimensions and harness slot heights and locations. The purpose of Virtual Simulation is to help engineers optimize design parameters before making physical models to test.

See an example of a Virtual Simulation below:

Dynamic Crash Tests (Frontal Impact)
As required by FMVSS 213, car seats must meet certain specifications when subjected to frontal impact sled tests simulating crashes at 30 mph. FMVSS 213 requires a standardized seat assembly, which is representative of a vehicle seat, and ATDs that represent children of various sizes. The test results help engineers to establish compliance with the performance requirements as per the FMVSS 213 regulation.

The performance of the prototype seats is evaluated using two criteria:

Motion Limits

Acceleration Limits

Data obtained during these tests include:

Head and knee excursion

Head and chest accelerations

These crash tests are taped with high speed cameras (1000 frames per second) in order for engineers to carefully observe the results in slow motion.

This picture was taken from a typical frontal crash test using BRITAX convertible car seat in a forward-facing position with 6-year old ATD (crash-test dummy).

Side Impact Testing
Currently, the US does not have federal regulatory standards for testing car seats for side-impact protection. In lieu of a federally regulated side impact testing standard, BRITAX has created a rigorous testing regime that simulates side impact crashes based on proven European test methods. BRITAX car seats are evaluated on how well they contain the head and minimize head, chest and pelvis acceleration.

Vibration Testing
Vibration Testing evaluates vibrations being transferred to the occupant through the car seat. The goal is to create a car seat that is just as comfortable as a vehicle seat for adults and minimize the amount of vibrations that are transferred through the seat belt system.

This picture was taken during a typical vibration test on vibration test rig using a European BRITAX convertible car seat.

Pendulum Testing
Pendulum Testing is used to evaluate performance of individual components and as a quality inspection tool. The energy to which components are subjected during a pendulum test is correlated to the energy that the subject receives on a simulated crash sled test.

Component Testing
At BRITAX we realize the importance of each component of the seat and how they contribute to the protection that the seat provides for your child. In order to ensure that each component maintains its structural integrity throughout the life of your child seat we invest more than 150 hours testing individual components on each product. Tests conducted include:

Market Research
BRITAX employs caregivers throughout the US to test products in real-life situations. The majority of market research is completed during the design process. We also feel it is very important to continue post production market research in order to gauge how the product is received and learn more about the areas in which we can improve.